Streamy Awards: A Closer Look at the News-Politics Nominees

The Streamy Awards are coming (March 28th!), and even hardened veterans of the Web TV world can have a hard time catching every single show out there. Towards that end, we thought it’d be a good idea to go over each of the shows nominated for Best Web Series in the News or Politics category. If you’re looking for a way to expand your news coverage, read on to catch the best the web has to offer in independent news sources.

ALIVE IN BAGHDAD – First up is Alive in Baghdad, a weekly news program by Small World News, the same folks behind Alive in Mexico. The program consists of Iraqi journalists reporting on daily-life topics; everything ranging from “How Do Young Iraqis Spend Their Free Time?” and “Pastry Shops Thriving In Iraq” to “Journalists in Danger Despite Drop in Censorship” and “Fake Pharmacies Plague Iraq”  — it’s all here. Check it out every Monday morning.

MOBLOGIC – Next is MobLogic, a CBS Interactive news production hosted by Lindsay Campbell. Most MobLogic episodes entail watching Ms. Campbell report on a variety of (American, generally) current events and news items. Gay marriage and civil rights are common topics, and they had plenty of election coverage, but occasionally they’ll do something like give disaster relief workers in Burma a camera to get some international reporting in. Curiously, they don’t seem to have been posting anything since mid-December, but hopefully the prospect of a Streamy could bring them back for this year.

MONKEY NEWS SOURCE – We also have what is basically the polar opposite of MobLogic – a news show called Monkey News Source, which bills itself as a “political news show hosted by a puppet chimpanzee” named Gordon Goodall. MNS is streamed live on TheStream.tv every Monday evening at 10pm Pacific. Personally, I’d call it less “political news” and more “talk show with a puppet monkey and lots of actors and comedians”, but in any case, with guests

like Michael McMillian (True Blood), and Seth Morris, and an episode called “Gay Anchor Showdown”  you can’t really go wrong.

ROCKETBOOM – Rocketboom would probably be a lock for the Streamy if the award was given on the merit of the name alone. Rocketboom is one of the older hands in the web news world, having started in October 2004 and going on for four years, occasionally showing up in Newsweek, Steve Jobs’s podcast playlist, and even an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, until landing a deal with Sony Pictures Television in August 2008. The show is hosted by Joanne Cola, who leads you through a daily news roundup that covers anything from Winnebago Man at South by Southwest and the dangers of social networking, to a piece on Doctors Without Borders in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Also worthy of note are the Know Your Meme shows which make sure you won’t be the last one on your block to know what a Rickroll is.

TALKING POINTS MEMO TV – Finally, we have Talking Points Memo TV , the web series attached to the Talking Points Memo Internet-based news network. As is typical of any TPM production, Talking Points Memo TV generally focuses on U.S. politics, federal government, and foreign policy – a veritable staple of news coverage for any politics junkie, particularly if they’re leaning a bit towards the left. Most recently, they’ve posted an interview with Jeremy Ben-Ami, director of J Street and plenty of coverage on the whole AIG Bailout business. Certainly a change of pace from the other four nominees, but by no means an unwelcome one.

Did your favorite news or politics show miss the Streamys nomination? Post a link in the comments!